Meet the New Owners of Pabst Blue Ribbon: The Brothers Metropoulos

Is Pabst Blue Ribbon – the beloved beer of blue collar workers and hipsters across the nation -- falling into skilled hands?

WSJ

As The Wall Street Journal reported today, investor C. Dean Metropoulos has agreed to buy Pabst from the charity that runs the beer maker for about $250 million. The Journal reports that Metropoulos’ sons, Evan, 29 years old, and Daren, 26, are expected to play key roles in running the company.

While the elder Metropoulos, 64, is known for his savvy deal making, such as his $2.2 billion sale of Pinnacle Food to Blackstone Group in 2007 and the $2.9 billion sale of labels Chef Boyardee and Bumble Bee Tuna to Con Agra in 2000, his sons are less tested.

That doesn’t mean they have kept a low-profile. Last year, Darren Metropoulos paid $18 million in cash for Hugh Hefner’s mansion in Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. The property includes a large “motor court” and a three-car garage where he can house his personal car collection, according to the Los Angeles Times. The 7,300-square-foot English style mansion is near the famed Playboy Mansion.

“He commutes to the Stamford campus in a huge Humvee. He hangs out with big-name wrestlers and rockers and jets around the world to conduct buinsess deals. He was running the entire marketing department of Bumble Bee Tuna at age 16,” it wrote.

He appeared on the Letterman show and on the MTV show’s former “True Life” series in a segment called “I’m the youngest tycoon in the world.”

In a 2008 interview with NEO magazine, which features prominent Greek Americans, the elder Dean Metropoulos credited his sons with getting marketing deals for Bumble Bee Tuna on the Howard Stern show and getting product placement of Gulden’s mustard, another one of the family’s food brands, in the movie “Picture Perfect” with Jennifer Anniston.

The boys also helped the champagne brand, Perrier Jouet, another Metropoulos brand, become featured in Snoop Dog and Limp Bizkit concerts, their father said.

Dean Metropoulos praised his sons' “wonderful virgin view and perceptions,’’ according to NEO magazine. He added: “My two sons have tremendous creative ideas on how to resurrect iconic brands that have been around for a very long time but have lost their competitive appeal.”

But if the brothers mess too much with the original PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) brand, which was founded in 1844, they better be careful. There could be a lot of angry hipsters, who don’t take kindly to high-profile, glitzy marketing campaigns.